The Breath of God by Jeffrey Small Page B

centered around the church that he’d placed in the middle of the town square. His architects had visited Charleston and Savannah for inspiration from old southern architecture.
    In the New Hope Community, the faithful would gain strength and support from each other, as well as worship, shop, and dine together—all without the corrupting influences so rampant in society today. The development would have its own cable TV system and movie theaters, playing only appropriate inspirational programming. Likewise, the Christian bookstore would carry titles similar to Brady’s book that would strengthen rather than confuse the people. Jennings had referred to the concept as Christian Urbanism, a take on the popular New Urbanism developments springing up around the country. Brady loved the term and immediately adopted it as his own. New Hope would be the model for how to turn around the problems of the country. Once Brady unseated Jimmy Jeffries, he would be in position to bring his vision to the nation.
    Brady peered across the table at Jennings. His number two was dressed in a gray pinstriped suit that hung loosely from his limbs and a white dress shirt that had stray threads showing around the neck and cuffs from being
laundered too many times. A long, sharp nose protruding from a pale face combined with an even longer neck gave him the appearance of an ostrich outfitted in Brooks Brothers. Brady shook his head and then brushed a fleck of lint from the sleeve of his own midnight black Armani suit. He then adjusted the French cuffs on his pale pink shirt so that they peeked out from his jacket sleeve just the right amount. He’d tried to tell Jennings that a low-budget appearance invited low-budget offerings, but his number two just didn’t have the flair for style that he had.
    Brady tapped his fingers on the table. Jennings and Carla still had their heads stuck in spreadsheets. Brady couldn’t tolerate those things. Fortunately, he had Jennings. The growth the church had experienced under the Brady-Jennings partnership surpassed even Brady’s lofty expectations: a few hundred members twenty years ago to over ten thousand today. The combination of Brady’s charisma and passion for the scripture and Jennings’s organizational abilities and attention to detail, along with God’s blessing, had worked a miracle.
    â€œThese delays are getting annoying. Do we start grading for the town square next month as planned?” Brady asked. They could finish the accounting later.
    Jennings looked up. “The bank’s attorneys have agreed to the final changes in the loan documents. We should close next month on the first hundred million. Then we’ll be able to pay down the line of credit we used to buy the land and fund our initial construction.”
    â€œGood. Everything’s going according to God’s will.” Brady gestured to the site plan in front of him. “Let’s talk about the layout of the retail center. I was thinking that maybe we should move these restaurants—”
    â€œBrian,” Jennings interrupted, “we spoke about this yesterday. Today we need to focus on the financial issues. You can indulge your creative side on Thursday with the architects, but for now we need to reexamine our costs.”
    â€œI thought we finished the value engineering last week. Didn’t you say that the money from the banks was a sure thing?”
    For the first time Carla spoke up. “Yes, Reverend, the loans should come through, but we still need to meet certain fund-raising covenants. I’m concerned that we’ve tapped out most of the large donors, and the smaller ones
have slowed significantly.” She pushed several sheets of legal paper in front of Brady.
    Not bothering to look at the papers, Brady stared at his new employee. He recalled her resume: a twenty-eight-year-old MBA from Auburn, Carla had worked at a midsized Birmingham accounting firm